All the Other Days. Jack Hartley

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СКАЧАТЬ and stare at the wall paper peeling off the walls. I start to think, and then my mind becomes a river as ideas flow through my head. I can never just relax. There’s always something ticking away in my head. I don’t have ADHD, but I can imagine what it’s like for those who do — the constant inability to be still. While my body doesn’t move, my thoughts do. I hear my parents yelling downstairs through the thin walls. I wish they were sound-proof, then maybe my mind would be quiet. I hear my father call her a bitch again. I hate this. If I could just run down there and smack him dead in the face. Watch him fall to the ground. And then we could escape. I’d let out all the anger inside of me and make him feel that through my fist. He’d feel the pain that I feel for once, being at the mercy of my anger instead of me being at his. But I can’t. I’m scared of him, and I know my mother couldn’t survive without his financial support.

      Money. That’s another thing that plays in my head. I hate how it controls everything. It starts most of their fights. I can only imagine how different things would be for Mom and I if we didn’t have to worry about it. She would actually smile for once, not feel like a prisoner in her own home. We could walk about the house not worrying about how his day at work went. Things would be just different.

      I can still hear them yelling downstairs and then I hear smashing. I don’t know if he’s hit her, or a wall, or what, but I start crying. I hate it. I can’t control the tears that fall down my cheeks. I don’t wipe them away because I know the dry spaces will soon be covered again. So I just sit and wait and hope he goes to bed soon so the river stops flowing. I put on my favourite film, The Wild One. I imagine I’m Johnny Strabler and the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club are my gang. I’d drive far away like he does. Never knowing where he is going. Just always away somewhere different. I lie in bed thinking about how my life would be if I was Marlon Brando. When I look at the clock, it’s 2:34 am. I turn off my lamp and try to fall asleep.

      Judd

      Day 6297

      The only time I look forward to being at school is at 8:35 am on Wednesdays because first period is art and I actually enjoy this subject. My teacher is Mr Churchill who is the most eccentric person I have ever met and fulfils every possible cliché of art teachers. He always brushes his scruffy white-grey hair as he speaks to you, like he’s trying to shake away what is going on in his head so he can concentrate on what you are saying. He is mad and loves to talk about anything and everything to do with art. And by his understanding of art, that encompasses almost everything in this world. But I love having him as a teacher, mainly because he is interesting and doesn’t seem to fit in, much like me. Maybe he is what I’ll be like when I’m older. The crazy art man. But God he is talented. He knows every medium of art inside out and can recite quotes from painters, photographers, actors and directors from any era. I swear Mr Churchill has a book for every artist who has ever existed. I love coming to his classes because the time flies by and I don’t feel like I’m pretending to be anyone. He has this unique ability to connect with all his students and really does take an interest in what their strengths and weaknesses are. Often, in the middle of class when everyone is silent, he’ll have an ‘aha’ moment and yell this as loud as he can. Everyone will usually stop and laugh with him, but then he’ll point out something that we would have never seen or understood before. In those moments, I love being at school.

      I sit next to Arthur in art, and we always talk absolute shit with each other. That’s the other reason I like being in this class: we don’t get told off for talking and laughing while we’re working, as long as we get our work done. Mr Churchill doesn’t like to interfere with our ‘artistic freedom’ as he likes to call it, so that pretty much means nothing is off limits in this class. Half the time, Arthur talks about the girls he wants to get with, and I sit there listening and envying him. He’s so confident with girls, and they like him because he’s different. Me, on the other hand, I’m sure most of the girls think I’m just the weird quiet guy who clings onto Arthur to guide me around. But that doesn’t bother me too much because without him I’d probably never even talk to any of the girls here or have much of a social life.

      Mr Churchill comes over to me while all the other students are working and looks at my sketch pad. ‘What are you trying to show in this?’ he asks.

      ‘I don’t know. I just like the tones of it.’

      I’m drawing the corridors at school. The dark shadows that are cast on the floorboards from the little light breaking through the old windows. The lockers all lined in their rows, and at the end of the corridor in the darkest part of the picture, I draw a figure standing there, heavy and dark, only an outline.

      ‘I’ve got some images you should have a look at. I’ll go and photocopy them for you now.’

      He comes back to my table five minutes later with a whole pile of A4 photocopied sheets and places them on the table.

      ‘Do you know any of these artists?’

      ‘No not really. Who are they?’

      ‘This is Lee Friedlander and László Moholy-Nagy. They’re photographers and painters. I know you are drawing, but they combine a lot of elements you are depicting in this drawing. They were pretty influential in their time. It’s always good to look at others’ work and recreate your own style from others.’

      I look at the images. I love the way they capture everyday people in normal places, using lighting to make the image look distorted. I feel an ‘aha’ moment coming on.

      ‘Yeah, their work is pretty cool.’

      ‘You know your work is really good, right?’ he says.

      ‘Really? I doubt it.’

      No one’s ever said I was good at anything before, and it feels even better coming from Mr Churchill.

      ‘No no, it really is. Have you thought about studying some sort of Art at college?’

      ‘No, not really,’ I answer, staring at my drawing. ‘I don’t think my family can afford the fees anyway.’

      There is an awkward silence as he thinks of what to say back, but then the bells rings. I’m glad because I don’t really want to talk to my teachers about my family’s money issues. I pack my work up and walk out the room with Arthur.

      At home, I sit at the computer looking for films to watch. I find one called Birdsong, a World War I two-part mini-series by the BBC. I search it on Google images and find a picture of a solider kissing a lady with birds flying out of his body into the sky. The lady from the film, Clémence Poésy, is beautiful. I get fixated on her and start to draw. I’m a bit of a hopeless romantic; I don’t know where it comes from. Probably because I wish I was living in films because they make love look so beautiful. Like it really is a force as strong as the elements of the earth. In films, the woman a man loves is the reason he’d do anything. He would drive himself to the brink of insanity to get her. I start to draw Clemence. I wish I had someone like that in my life. Someone I could look at and everything that is wrong in the world wouldn’t matter. I could escape my parents fighting and go anywhere and everywhere with. Someone I could be just me with, and they would do anything just to see me smile. I decide this drawing can go on the happy side in my room, as one day I will look at a face as beautiful as hers and she will smile back at me. I won’t have to draw these moments to feel them. As I’m watching the film, a quote from one of the soldiers sticks out, mainly because of all the thoughts I have in my head of love right now.

      ‘There is nothing more Sir, than to love and be loved.’

      It makes me hopeful, because even though these soldiers are going to die, love is what they grasp onto, the thing СКАЧАТЬ